Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-05-06
SECRET SOCIETIES

The Subject of DR.. Talmage's Sermon
at the Tabernacle.
"What Is the Moral Effect of Free Masonry
Odd Fellowship, knights of Labor, Greek
Alphabet, and Other Societies."
BROOKLYN, April 1.-THE Rev. L. De
Witt Talmage, D. d., announced to his
congregation to-day that, as the Brooklyn
Tabernacle has been uncomtortaoly
crowded for many years. the trustees nave
purchased the adjoining ground, on W hlch
a great church, prayer, and Sunday-school
room will be built, which on Sabbath can
be opened into the main auditorium, mus
giving room for at least 1, 1000 more hearers
at services. Six thousand people are
crowded into the present building, 4,65O OF
these in pews and about 1880 seated IN
aisles and standing. The improvement
will add greatly to this capacity.
The subject of DR.. Talmage's sermon
to-day was, "What is the moral effect OF
Free Masonry, Odd Fellowship, knights OF
Labor, Greek Alphabet. and other So
c%ieties?" The text was from Proverbs XIV.
8: "Discover not q soeret to another" LII.
Talmage said:
III appears GQHU III SOlCIuOu tAAuO AZ -
all subsequent periods Of the world, there
we're people too much disposed to tell all
they knew. 1t was blab, blab, blab;
physicians revealing the cases of their
patients, lawyers exposing the private
affairs Of their clients, neighbors advertls-
ing the faults. of the next-door resident;
pretended friends betraying condolences.
One-half of the trouble of every COM
munity, comes from the fact that so many
people have not capacity to keep their
mouths shut. When l hear something dis.
paraging of you my first duty is not to tell
you. But if I tell you what somebody has
said against you, and then go out and tell
everybody else what I told you, and they
that l told you, and we oil go out, some to
hunt up the originator of the story and
others to hunt it'down, we shall get the
whole community talking about what you
did do and what you did not do, and there
will be Us many scalps taken Us though o
band of Modocs had swept upon a helpless
village. We have two ears but only one
tongue, q physiological suggestion that
we ought to hear a good deal more than
we tell. Let us join a conspiracy that we
will tell each other all the good and nothing
of the ill, and then there will be no such
awful need Of sermons on Solomon's
WORDS. DlSCOVCE uOU u bcCISG W duOtuc1s
Solomon had o very large domestic circle.
In his earlier days he had very confused
notions about monogany and polygamy,
and his multitudinous associates in the
matrimonial state kept him too we'll in
formed as to what was going on in
jerusalem. They gathered up all the
privacies of the city and poured them into
his ear, and his family became a Sorosis
or female debating society of ZOO, dis
cussing day after day all the difficulties
between husbands and wives, between en-
ployers and employees, between rulers and
subjects, until Solomon, in my text, de-
plores volubility about affairs that do not
belong to us and extols the virtue of secret
iveness.
BY the power of q secret divulged, FAM
lilies, churches, neighborhoods. nations fly
apart. BY the power of q se%cretkept, great
charities, sociaiities, reformatory move
ments, and Christian enterprises may be
advanced. Men are gregarious-cattle in
herds, fish in schools, birds in fiocks, mer
in social circles. You may by the discharge
of a gun scatter q flock of quails or by the
plunge of the anchor send apart the deni.
zens Of the sea, but they will gather them.
selves together again. If you by some new
power could break the associations in which
men now stand, they would again adhere.
God meant it so. He has gathered all the
flowers and shrubs into associations.
You may plant one forget-me-not OF
hearts-ease alone, EVA off upon the hill.
side, but it will soon hunt up some Other
forget-me-not or heart:s-ease. Plants
love company. You will find them talking
to each other in the dew. A galaxy Of
stars is only a mutual life insurance com.
pany. You sometimes see a man with Mt
out branchings of sympathy. His nature
is cold and hard, like a ships mast ice
glazed, which the most agile sailor coulc
never climb. Others have o Thousand
roots and a Thousand branches. Innumer.
able tendrils climb their hearts and blossom
oil the way up, and the fowls of HEAVIER
sing in the branches. In Of
this tendency we find men coming together
in tribes, in communities, in churches, il
societies. Some gather to cultivate the
arts, some to plan for the welfare of the
State, some to discuss religious themes
some to kindle their mirth, some to advance
their craft. So every active community il
divided in associations of artists, of mer.
chants, of bookbinders,. of carpenters, O.
masons, of plasters, of shipwrights, OF
plumbers. Do you cry against it? Their
you cry out against q tendency divinely i'm.
planted. Your TRADES would accomplish
no more than if you should preach to q
busy ant hill or beehive a long sermon
against secret societies.
Here we find the oft discussed question,
whether associations that do their work
with closed doors, admit their members by
passwords, and greet each other with a
secret grip are right or wrong. I answer
that it depends entirely on the nature OF
the object for which they meet. Is it to
pass the hours in revelry, wassail, bias
phemy and obscene,talk, or to plot trouble
to the State, or to debauch the innocent,
then say. with an emphasis that no man
can mistake, No! But is the object the
defense of the rights of any class against
oppression, the improvement of the mind
the enlargement of the heart, the advances
ment Of art, the defence of the Govern
ment, the extirpation of crime, or the kind
ling OF q ~pure-hearted sociality, then I say,
with just as much emphasis, Yes.
There is no need that we who plan tor
|, the conquest of right over wrong should
!, publish to all the world our intentions.
The general of an army never sends to the
opposing troops information of the COMING
attack. Shall we who have enlisted in the
cause Of God and humanity, expose on,
plan to the enemy? No! We will in secrei
!, plot the ruin of all the enterprises of Satar
,, and his cohorts. When they expect MS b1
day we will coll upon +bou u. ..,:I